Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive of Total, recently said leaders of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), an organisation the firms are part of, want to “work collectively to develop technologies which will be needed to face climate change issues”.

The chief executive officers of the oil giants will use the money to cut the costs of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology so it is more economically viable to re-inject carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning plants into underground caverns.

They will also come up with other ways to limit the oil sector’s emissions, including reducing the release of methane, cutting down on the flaring of excess gas at fields, and boosting the use of CCS.

More and more businesses may be interested in following the oil companies’ footsteps and going green, after changes to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol meant that firms can include green energy as part of their gas emissions reports.